It's a day we have to remember trans and otherwise gender nonconforming people we have known or have not known who have lost their lives due to anti-trans violence and bigotry. It's important. Very.

So, maybe you want to remember someone today: if so, please do, and talk abut them as much as you like. Maybe you'd like to talk about your life as a trans or gendernonconforming person today: that's a good thing to do, too.

Cara at The Curvature wrote a beautiful, powerful piece this morning that I think is something else to read and think about today, here. Maybe your takeaway from that piece as a cis person is to step it up. And hopefully, if you're a trans or gender nonconforming person, one big thing this can cement for you is that any harassment or injustice you deal with is NOT because there is anything wrong with you. It's not because of you: it's because of other people.

From that piece:

quote:to my fellow cis [gender] people and to my fellow cis people only, I would suggest that we remember all of those who have died or suffered as a result of anti-trans violence, but to not stop there. For it would be letting ourselves off much to easy. I would suggest that we remember not only who died, but who killed them. That we remember how they died. Why they are no longer here.

It’s because of cis people. And that makes it our job to stop it. It is not the job of trans* people to stop cis violence against them anymore than it is the job of women, trans or cis, to stop men from raping (though it should always be trans* people from whom cis people take leadership and cues). It’s on us. Especially those of us cis people who see ourselves as “the good ones” who “aren’t prejudiced like that.”

It’s up to us, cis folks, to stop treating this like it’s not “our” issue. It’s up to us to stop making anti-trans jokes, to stop treating gender like a binary, to stop using anti-trans slurs, to stop defining gender by genitals and reproductive capacity, to stop misgendering with wrong names and pronouns, to stop denying access to medical care and domestic violence shelters, to stop making “woman-only” spaces that are trans-exclusive. Just as importantly, it’s time to start speaking up whenever we see other people do these things, instead of waiting for trans* folks to do it themselves. Because while speaking out is not always 100% safe for cis people, it is a million times more likely to be safe for us than it is for those who are trans*.

And it’s time, too, for cis people to start recognizing all of these supposedly “small” things, the jokes, the assumptions, for what they are — the roots of violence, violence themselves against people’s identities, the precursors to even more severe violence. It’s time to recognize that when you make someone’s identity a joke, you make their humanity a joke, too. And there is no way for that to not end in violence.

[ 11-20-2010, 11:39 AM: Message edited by: Heather ]

--------------------Heather Corinna, Executive Director & Founder, ScarleteenAbout Me • Get our book!Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has. - Margaret MeadPosts: 68290 | From: An island near Seattle | Registered: May 2000
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posted 11-21-201003:23 AM
I'd like to thank, and remember all of those who have died fighting transphobia, and who have pushed for transgender rights, so that I may be able to live a happy, and productive life. I am sobered by the fact that if I was born 50 years ago, there would have been a slim chance that I could have lived the life I wanted. Even though I am just beginning on this journey, I am grateful for everyone who has made it easier for me to transition.
Posts: 18 | From: Atlanta | Registered: Mar 2010
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We'd appreciate it if everyone could just take a moment to honor this day, the trans people in your lives (including yourself, when that's the case!), and make a commitment to always playing whatever part you can to help eradicate violence against trans people and cultivate and support equal rights, care, love and acceptance.

--------------------Heather Corinna, Executive Director & Founder, ScarleteenAbout Me • Get our book!Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has. - Margaret MeadPosts: 68290 | From: An island near Seattle | Registered: May 2000
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posted 11-20-201106:46 PM
Never knew this was today. Guess I should, since my presentation is now sufficiently androgynous that people do double takes when they see me walking down the road, and sometimes I'm frightened, and I never understood before how much guts it takes to transition.

I've been thinking lately about how very, very recent hormones and surgery for trans people are. Imagine all those trans people lost to history who transitioned without body modification, who in many cases had to live in deep stealth all their lives whether they liked it or not, who'd often have been, and doubtless often were, summarily murdered if found out, with no identity politics to use in an argument, no hate-crimes legislation, no nothing. Lots of people. We go back a long time. Plato took on two female, or female-bodied, students, and according to the histories one of them "is said to have worn men's clothes". Of course that doesn't necessarily mean ze was FtM, but I like to think ze was.
Posts: 170 | From: UK | Registered: Mar 2011
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posted 12-18-201105:27 PM
I was visiting a university in a different European city in the last week of November, and they had a number of events linked to gender and rights. One group of students had done a big thing around Transgender Day of Remembrance, with flyers and posters and info and a meeting. In a public meeting area, they'd put huge posters around the pillars, covered with lists of trans people who have been murdered, the date and place. Under a few, there were brief details of the attack. Many "unidentified" were also listed. I found it incredibly moving. Terribly sad, anger-inducing, and also uplifting that someone cares, that these people are remembered.

--------------------The kyriarchy usually assumes that I am the kind of woman of whom it would approve. I have a peculiar kind of fun showing it just how much I am not.Posts: 1786 | From: Europe | Registered: Sep 2011
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posted 12-19-201103:22 AM
I don't get why some people judge so harshly. I mean, I don't think there's anything you can do if you have the body parts of one sex and feel in your mind that you are the other. It *really* annoys me that people can't keep their thinking about "how everyone has to be normal, like me" thinking to themselves and not inflict pain or murder on people trying to live the lives the best they can. It is a fact that we have people who are not cisgender or heterosexual, because, why would anyone choose to be discriminated against or murdered if they had any choice over the matter?
Posts: 540 | From: Australia | Registered: Feb 2011
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